Women contribute important insights in agricultural research. Whether as government researchers, university professors, or senior research managers, their skills and perspectives are essential for addressing the unique and pressing challenges of all farmers, particularly female farmers. In addition, recruiting from only male candidate pools hampers efforts by African agricultural research agencies to hire the best candidates, regardless of sex.

These are a few of many good reasons why African countries should ensure that women are well represented among their agricultural researchers.

The number of women researchers rose in both absolute and relative terms between 2008 and 2014—and in 2014, an average of 24 percent of full time equivalent researchers in a sample of 40 African countries were female.

Obviously there is much more progress to be made. An in-depth look at the data reveals that representation varies widely between countries, and women tend to be in less senior positions.

What obstacles are women agricultural researchers facing? What can help overcome them? ASTI’s gender-specific data provides an illustration, but much more information is needed to answer these questions. Success for African farmers—both male and female—depends on it.

ASTI is proud to announce the launch of its new website, loaded with easy-to-use tools for viewing, comparing, and downloading key agricultural R&D information.These new tools allow you to:

Rank and compare the status and direction of agricultural research investment and capacity across countries in Africa south of the Sahara, West Asia and North Africa, and Central America and the Caribbean.

Access detailed national-level trends in agricultural research investment and human resources, and download factsheets and other information on interactive country pages.

Explore in-depth datasets for a large number of low-and middle-income countries in the data download tool.

All of these interactive tools are available on a clean, newly redesigned website that—thanks to ASTI’s new backend coding system—is automatically updated with new data regularly.Watch a video tutorial on how to engage with interactive data, compare countries and regions, and download custom datasets.

Over the past five decades, investments in agricultural R&D have had a tremendous impact on agricultural productivity and food security around the world. There is, however, a substantial time lag between investing in research and reaping its rewards: typically decades, not just years. Mobilizing adequate levels of long-term R&D funding is challenging, as agricultural R&D competes with other critical public domains, including health and education. Throughout the Arab world, agricultural R&D was not a political priority for decades, but when food prices rose to record highs in 2008, governments realized they could no longer neglect agricultural investment, and started looking at ways to enhance agricultural productivity.

To accelerate this agricultural growth, Arab countries need sustainable funding for strategic agricultural research programs, combined with well-trained researchers and well-equipped research centers. A recent report released by ASTI assesses trends in investments and human resource capacity in agricultural R&D in 11 countries in West Asia and North Africa during 2009–2012. It demonstrates that despite recent increases in agricultural R&D expenditures, spending in most countries still remains below the levels required to sustain their agricultural sectors’ needs. In most Arab countries, total agricultural R&D spending as a percentage of agricultural GDP continues to fall short of the United Nations guideline level of at least 1 percent.

On a positive note, considerable progress was made in building human capacity in agricultural R&D in West Asia and North Africa in recent years. Ten out of eleven countries for which detailed data were available reported increases in the number of PhD-qualified researchers. Egypt currently employs more agricultural researchers with PhDs than the rest of Africa combined. Another reason for the growth in capacity in recent years has been the higher education sector’s increased involvement in agricultural R&D, both due to the creation of new universities and of new departments and faculties within existing universities.Compared with other developing regions around the world, funding for agricultural R&D in Arab countries is very undiversified and relies largely on government sources. In many countries, government funding covers little more than salary-related expenses, leaving insufficient resources to facilitate day-to-day research operations, let alone the maintenance of infrastructure and equipment. Private funding remains a largely untapped resource. Cultivating private funding requires that Arab governments provide a more enabling policy environment through tax incentives, protection of intellectual property rights, and regulatory reforms to encourage the spill-in of international technologies.

Despite these advancements, retaining a critical mass of PhD-qualified researchers proves challenging. Official status differences between government and university-based scientists prevent government agencies in many countries from offering the competitive salaries and benefits. Many well-qualified, young researchers have left government R&D agencies in favor of better conditions at universities. Cross-country differences are also driving staff turnover. In recent years, there has been a considerable exodus of highly qualified professors and researchers from Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon toward the Gulf and other high-income countries. Besides, more than half the PhD-qualified researchers at national agricultural research institutes in Algeria, Jordan, Tunisia, Sudan, and Yemen are over 50 and due to retire in the short- to medium-term. Adequate recruitment, succession, and training strategies are urgently called for to ensure future continuity of research in these countries.

Another critical area needing attention is the development of strong, national agricultural research policy agendas. In many Arab countries, agriculture-related priorities are not always satisfactorily embedded within national S&T policies, with the result that decisionmaking is fragmented and coordination among the relevant actors lacking. Policymakers must also ensure that improved varieties and technologies released by research institutes are more effectively disseminated to farmers. This involves strengthening agricultural extension agencies.

The impact of agricultural R&D does not stop at national borders. Given the numerous common challenges faced by Arab countries—including climate change, water scarcity, and rapid population growth—a more integrated approach to agricultural R&D that reduces wasteful duplication could benefit the region as a whole.

As the world’s population continues to expand, ensuring that food production can meet the growing demand is an ever-mounting challenge. Climate change, soil degradation, and volatile food prices further threaten food security at a time when increasing agricultural output is paramount.

Regional spending on agricultural research and development (R&D) must double if the countries of SSA are to meet the recommended United Nations (UN) and African Union’s target of investing 1 percent of agricultural GDP in public agricultural R&D, not to mention the even more ambitious post-2015 recommendation that low- and middle-income countries ramp up spending on agricultural R&D by five percent from 2015 to 2025.

The report highlights additional challenges to national agricultural research systems:

Low staff retention and qualification levels: Civil service recruitment restrictions, low salaries, and inadequate funding have prevented many public agricultural research institutions from competing for, training, and retaining staff; in addition, a very large share of senior researchers are approaching retirement

Low female participation: Although female participation in agricultural R&D has increased in recent years, women have less influence on decisionmaking and policy because men continue to dominate in senior research and management positions.

High funding volatility: Volatile fluctuations in agricultural R&D funding exert negative impacts on agricultural research systems by impeding strategic planning, undermining the conduct of research programs, demotivating staff, and eroding prior progress, all of which affect the quality, quantity, and efficiency of research outcomes and their ultimate impact on agricultural productivity and poverty alleviation.

High donor dependency: Significant shares of government funding are generally allocated to salaries, leaving many countries dependent on donor and development bank funding to support the day-to-day costs of operating research programs and developing and maintaining R&D infrastructure; in addition to increasing funding volatility, high dependence on donor funding has the potential to skew national research priorities.

African governments and research agencies are limited in their choice of options to address the many challenges they face in developing their agricultural research systems because of funding constraints. The ASTI report lists various successful policy changes already adopted in certain countries, which can offer valuable lessons for other countries.

“It is critical that African countries invest more in agricultural research to ensure that they can feed their populations,” said Beintema. “Underinvestment, inadequate human resource capacity, poor research infrastructure, and a lack of coherent policies continue to constrain the quantity and quality of research outputs in many countries.”

DIIVA stands for Diffusion and Impact of Improved Varieties in Africa, a project that collected data on improved crop varieties in Africa south of the Sahara. The three featured databases on adoption, varietal releases, and the scientific strength of breeding programs, organized around a set of 154 crop-country combinations (across 21 crops and 29 countries). The databases are hosted by the ASTI web site. (www.asti.cgiar.org)

Why is DIIVA relevant?

The steady uptake and turnover of crop varieties is key to supporting increases in food production in Africa and creating a trampoline effect of green agriculture in Africa and supporting increases in food production Yet despite the efforts of agricultural researchers in crop improvement in the region, the current knowledge of the diffusion of improved crop varieties is patchy at best.

The data and analysis generated through the DIIVA project closes this salient knowledge gap. It provides information on the effectiveness of each of crop improvement systems in delivering modern varieties to farmers, and provides insights into means to improve the way that the CGIAR and the African national agricultural research institutions can work together more effectively.

DIIVA and ASTI data interaction

ASTI is expanding its website with other databases related to agricultural R&D in developing countries, such as DIIVA. By hosting the DIIVA website, visitors will be able to link the adoption and release of specific crops and countries with the overall status of agricultural R&D in the near future when ASTI releases its updated dataset for the region (planned for spring 2014). For example, adoption of various maize varieties in Tanzania can be compared with the country’s allocation of research resources to maize.

What were the DIIVA findings?

According to the CGIAR, “Output in the form of released varieties is increasing for most crops, but is still characterized by a high level of instability from year to year.” Overall adoption of improved varieties across the countries and crops of Africa south of the Sahara is estimated at 35%, but masking significant variation across crops. This represents steady progress when compared to prior estimates from the early 2000s.

Furthermore, during the discussion of substantive results in the sections on varietal output, adoption, and change, the DIIVA project has also had its share of surprises. For example, “Prominent among these unexpected findings are the increasing demand for maize OPVs in West Africa, the steady productivity record of cassava in the face of well-documented resource scarcity, and the advanced age of cultivars in the expanding soybean crop in Nigeria.”

Modernizing the agricultural sector is a key task in developing Asia, in particular for low income countries according to the “Key Indicators for the Asia and Pacific 2013” report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). To follow in the path of high-income countries in the region, agricultural research and development (R&D) investment will be necessary to bring about the technological innovation needed for this modernization. The new regional synthesis report “Benchmarking Agricultural Research Indicators across Asia–Pacific” published by ASTI and APAARI presents the most recent data available on agricultural R&D in the region, laying out a baseline by which to measure future progress.

The Asia–Pacific region has increasingly raised the profile of its contribution to global agricultural R&D. In 2008, $0.40 of every dollar spent on public agricultural R&D worldwide targeted the countries of this region. Total public agricultural R&D spending in Asia–Pacific increased by 50 percent since 1996 to $12.3 billion in 2008. Most of this growth was driven by the region’s low- and middle-income countries, whereas growth in the region’s high-income countries stagnated. In fact, growth in public agricultural R&D spending in the region’s low- and middle-income countries has outpaced growth in all other developing regions around the world since the 1980s. China and India accounted for almost all of this growth which is a reflection of the strong support of their governments to public agricultural R&D acknowledging its important role in driving agricultural growth.

Aside from increased spending, most low- and middle-income countries in the region have also made considerable progress in building human resource capacity in agricultural R&D. With a few exceptions, the number of scientists employed in most countries across the region has increased, and in all the sample countries scientists’ qualification levels have improved since the 1990s.

This development is notable given the widespread challenges that these agencies face, including attracting and maintaining a pool of well-qualified research staff, and dealing with disproportionate numbers of either aging, senior staff, or junior, inexperienced staff. Some countries with a history of political isolation (notably Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam) still have very low numbers of PhD-qualified staff, forming a significant impediment to advancing the quality of research.

Despite these positive developments, agricultural R&D spending as a share of agricultural output in Asia–Pacific is lagging behind other regions of the developing world. In 2008, of the 13 low- and middle-income countries for which detailed spending data were available, Malaysia was the only country investing more than 1 percent of its agricultural GDP in agricultural research. Even though intensity ratios do not take into account the policy and institutional environment within which agricultural research takes place or the broader size and structure of a country’s agricultural sector and economy, these low ratios are a clear sign of underinvestment in agricultural R&D.

If Asia–Pacific is to meet its agricultural, economic, and emerging challenges, including rapid population growth, climate change, environmental degradation, and food price volatility, levels of investment in agricultural R&D must increase. In addition, such investments will need to be better managed, timed, and targeted to ensure maximum impact on productivity growth and poverty reduction. The private sector, for example, is still an untapped resource in many of the region’s countries.

Simply put: Supporting policy reforms offer further potential to ensure that the benefits of agricultural R&D translates into future results.

ASTI received an honorable mention in a report to the G20 submitted on June 12 by more than ten foremost international organizations. The authors—including the OECD, FAO, the World Food Programme, and the World Bank—recognize ASTI's key role in measuring and tracking investments in agricultural R&D in low- and middle-income countries. One of their recommendations urges the G20 governments to find the necessary resources to further strengthen the ASTI initiative, which is now being transformed into a more institutionally anchored and decentralized system of data collection and analysis.

The Interagency Report responds to a G20 request for advice on practical actions to raise agricultural productivity, especially on small family farms. It underwrites the role that agricultural innovation must play to ensure a healthy and adequate diet for all—while conserving natural resources. This will almost certainly require more effective innovation systems—which is why it is vital to more closely monitor agricultural R&D investment trends.

ASTI is one of the few sources of primary data and analyses on trends in agricultural research capacity, according to the report. The value of its original and ongoing survey work in developing countries is enhanced by comparisons with relevant data for developed countries.

Nature published a special article todayon the role of agricultural science in addressing future food security. An accompanying graphic to "Food: The growing problem" presents the latest ASTI data on agricultural R&D expenditures. The article points out that total agricultural R&D investment of $25 billion accounts for only 5 percent of all science R&D spending and that increased investment will be critical to improving agricultural productivity.

Further investments are urgently needed for human capacity building at universities and R&D agencies to redress the decline in researcher capacity caused by an aging workforce and brain-drain. [Read more...]